Whispering Winds
by talchi
Summary: In their old age, Faramir and Eowyn deal with the blood difference... author's note is at the end. "Here he watches from his study, his heart silently breaking, as she opens her eyes and her hands curl up and slowly..."


Her hair is silver now; not gray (it will never be gray to him, gray is the colour of his father's hair, the color of shadow and misery), not golden as it once was, and she moves less.   
  
She sits, now, lonely, proud, in the earth that she has tended for so many years (he recalls, how golden that memory was when she promised him her heart, how hazy, how beautiful, he remembers the rippling of her hair in the pink dawn, he remembers the light, soft kiss -and yet it was so long, it lasted an eternity to him as they stood upon that wall and the sun shone down on them, two lovers- the cool breezes lifting their hearts and their spirits, soft warm skin, the contented silences -and it was after such lays as he had never imagined- the endless feeling... of what? That all would last unchanging? What fools they were then...), her back straight, her hands splayed, in a last painful effort, to fight the arthritis invading her joints, her face (lined, but this he cares not, he knows) serene, her eyes closed, her breathing unlaboured but quick and angry.   
  
Unseen tears burn at her eyelids, this he knows; he has heard her weeping in their chambers, and then that feeling that first came to him when he heard her cry out as she bent over, and it clouds him, this is worse than anything he would have thought possible it was for someone to feel, worse than watching his only true friend (brother) float away, holding his proud horn (one piece in each hand), worse than sinking down to the ground in uncomforted misery as he realizes in that moment that he is utterly, utterly alone, worse than his father's awkward silences and piercing glares, worse than the fights with his children, worse than anything he has ever, ever felt.   
  
Here he watches from his study, his heart silently breaking, as she opens her eyes and her hands curl up and slowly, carefully, she stands, and walking quickly, carrying her small harvest in a large, woven basket, she enters into the house. He does not hear her, but he knows what she does now - she commands the servants in the kitchen, moving silently, moving quickly, an image of speed and youngness, what she yearns for, (and it is this that hurts him the most) and it is not for herself, but it is for him that she puts on this display of youth and happiness when inside he knows she is slowly crumbling, her muscles slackening, her organs failing, to prepare for the inevitable that he fears so.   
  
At night he has held her (delicately, to him, she is now an aging flower, able to crumble with the indifferent swipe of a hand) and she has been so still and stiff, that he knows she does not sleep, and they both are awake into the early hours of the morning, each feigning rest, until exhaustion finally takes them, and when he wakes she is always gone, the bed long cold.   
  
The mirror in their room is still there; he would have ordered it removed save he knows that doing so would be a hard blow to her spirit, he knows also that she sits in front of it daily, and sometimes he enters when she sits there, still as cold stone, and she turns to him, (her eyes so tortured, so large and beautiful) and he knows what she thinks he sees in her; at this anger fills him - does she think him so shallow as to believe that the waste of her body changes her spirit?   
  
You are still Éowyn, he yearns to say to her. You are still the woman - how strong a woman, how brave and beautiful, how intelligent, clever, full of wit and humour, how loving a woman you are, what a true heart you have, how I know that will never change in you - you are still her, and I love you -I have never stopped loving you-, and I do not care if your body ages. And then he will take her and kiss her, just as an affirmation, and they will laugh and it will be like the golden age that he remembers so.   
  
But he cannot. She does not let him, and he has tried countless times. There have been such awkward moments, when her age shows, when he is present, and automatically her head will turn to him (so quickly) and he opens his mouth to speak (to comfort, to reassure) and she picks up her broken pride and shunts him from her mind.   
  
He remembers, long ago, when they would sit together under the dark night sky filled with uncounted stars (not that they have not tried to) and they were married already then, and he had believed that this life was forever, that all would remain unchanging.   
  
(It is not so...)   
  
Things have changed.   
  
Five children, some with dark hair and some with hair that was golden, so like to the gold he loved so in his wife (though now he has come to realize that it is not the colour of the hair but it is her herself that draws him in like a moth to the warmth and light of a lamp). There were others with hair neither dark nor fair, and the house had been filled with these rosy, beautiful children, some boys, some girls, all delightful (scandalizing the ladies of Gondor on the frequent visits, wearing out the servants), and they had so much joy, (even now a hope flutters in his mind, much like a trapped butterfly) and he had a family, he could do so many things now with her, with their children.   
  
They grew and grew and found their own and they themselves had children.   
  
(So fast)   
  
And steadily, Éowyn's hair has turned silver, while his remained the same, impassive black. He looks at his own. There are a few stray hairs here and there, though that is due mainly to stress. What he would give to age with her, what he would give!   
  
The last forty-seven years have passed in a day: too short a time.   
  
He rises now, hoping to comfort her. As he exits his study and prepares to walk down the shining wooden stairs, he recites what he is to say to her. But her responses are always different. Will she be weeping now? He cannot bear it, he hurries down, his face clouded and his steps unwary, and passing a maid that is holding a silver platter of tea.   
  
-   
  
She is in the Den. That is what it is called. It has been named so by her very own children. So many years, she thinks. So many years that she has spent with such happiness. This place is a holder of memories, such that she treasures. Éowyn once again, commences the tedious, heartbreaking task of examining how she has aged. It has become such an upsetting idea for her that she checks everyday for signs of aging.   
  
She does not tell Faramir of this. What would he think if he knew? Her head bows and she stares down at her hands, curled with age.   
  
Disgusting.   
  
She straightens them quickly, so abruptly that it feels like the tip of a knife slashing up her arm. But she is silent. She has known pain, (oh she knows it so well) and she is able to stop the cry that threatens to bubble up. Yet she cannot stop her hands from clenching into iron grips.   
  
Éowyn feels the warm tears splatter on her dress as her shoulders shake.   
  
-   
  
Faramir walks quickly, weaving a confused path through the rooms. Their children have all their own homes now (most have married women of the Númenorean race, yet only one has chosen a bride of Rohan), and the house is so quiet. He should be used to it, but he still expects his children to come running out, perhaps one chasing the other, the sound of fighting and yelling, and the sound of laughter and the cooing of a baby.   
  
He opens doors this way and that, looking for his wife. There is some time before he is able to find her. She sits, working on some embroidery (she has improved beyond recognition at these sort of things, and yet he feels rather wistful and wishes she were still horrible at it in a small part of his mind). Her eyes are red-rimmed, and he knows, with a sinking heart, that she has been crying (he wants to run to her and beg for her to listen to him).   
  
Silence.   
  
She looked up when he entered, but does not do so again. He sits down next to her, and takes her hand, so that she must stop her work, but still, she refuses to turn her head.   
  
"Éowyn, will you not even look at me?"   
  
She does, never able to resist a challenge. "What use would it do?" she asks, her voice low and disdainful and bitter. "Twould only drive -" but at this she stops. There is such pity (she hates that) on his face, and such compassion (some echo in her mind) and he reaches for her other hand. Her mind, so proud, so beautiful, crumples.   
  
(...In Minas Arnor, the Tower of the Sun...)   
  
For the third time in all their marriage, she cries her sorrows on his shoulder. But something changes - or has changed. She is open now: she saw such love in his eyes, such love that it dissolved her inside, (such that she felt that day that she stood there with him and felt it, she is feeling that now) such that it melts her anger and let the barrier be flooded.   
  
How she loves him, how this warmth that blossomes from her heart and reaches to the tips of her aging fingers warms her.   
  
(...And there was a princess from a distant land, and she was so beautiful...)   
  
It will be alright, he knows, as he untangles her hair and kisses her temple. He will be alright. Éowyn will be alright. They will go on loving each other, and they will continue their lives, and they will be alright, because it feels so familiar and comforting to hold her (why should it, though? Is it because it has been so very long since they have even looked at each other that way?). And he holds her and talks to her, as he had years ago on that day of the whispering winds.   
  
_© Me. This is a not too well-written analysis on their old age... um... Éowyn was around 24 when she did the Witch King in, so this is about 50 years later... obviously their grandchildren will probably have had children too... and since Faramir has Númenorean blood in him, he will live way longer than Éowyn... angst and all that sod. Also, I don't think her point of view was very good at all... quite crappy if you ask me. I do hope the accented 'u' in Númenorean was all right._


End file.
